Association Report: CUR
CUR Institutes: A New Model for Supporting Research with Undergraduates by Nancy Mills and Mitch Malachowski As part of its efforts toward enhancing collaborative student–faculty scholarship, CUR has established a series of workshops focused on issues of concern to faculty involved in research with undergraduates. Two of those workshops will be presented in the coming year: “Institutionalizing Undergraduate Research” will be held at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse at the end of October 1999; and “The Vital Faculty: Issues after Tenure” will be held at the College of William and Mary in mid-February 2000. Institutionalizing Undergraduate Research, a workshop on creating an institutional climate of support for research with undergraduates, has been presented to faculty and administrators from 70 institutions and has been held on the campuses of the University of North Carolina–Asheville, the University of San Diego, and at the University of Wisconsin–La Crosse. Most recently, an institute on Issues of MidCareer Faculty, eventually known as The Vital Faculty: Issues after Tenure, was offered to faculty and administrators from 20 institutions and held on the campuses of Bates College and Trinity University. Each institution sends a team of three to five members and must include an administrator, preferably one with oversight responsibilities in some aspect of undergraduate research or faculty development (this person has commonly been a dean or a provost and often a department chair). The participants are not strictly from disciplines in the sciences; it has not been unusual to see a substantial number of faculty from the humanities, arts, and social sciences. At most institutes, there are more applications than available slots. Therefore, team selection is based on individual attributes and on a desire in matching schools with similar interests so that teams can learn from each other as well as from the facilitators and speakers. The most successful teams have been those with broad campus representation from many different departments. Each CUR Institute is structured as an intensive threeday workshop that begins on a Friday after lunch or at 5 p.m. and runs through Sunday at 1 p.m. Two general activities are woven throughout the weekend: plenary sessions where the facilitators, coordinators, and invited speakers give presentations; and breakout sessions where the teams work with their facilitators, drafting plans for implementation after their return to campus. The goal of each institute is the preparation of an institutional plan for implementing either a program for the creation of institution-wide research programs or faculty-development programs for mid-career faculty. Institutionalizing Undergraduate Research In designing the programs for each session, the coordinators attempt to accomplish two objectives: the first is during the plenary talks, where background information on topics relevant to undergraduate research is presented to help participants identify the issues they want to consider during 1320
the weekend. Topics of these talks vary and have included: models of undergraduate research programs, the impact of undergraduate research on student learning, examples of successful undergraduate research programs, inclusion of underrepresented groups in research, funding opportunities, the role of grants and contracts offices, and collaborative scholarship. The second and more important activity that is ongoing throughout the weekend involves the teams developing mission statements and goals for undergraduate research on their individual campuses. The culmination of the CUR Institutes is a summary session on Sunday afternoon where teams present their plans to all other attendees. This public presentation gives teams an opportunity to prioritize their goals and to develop ideas from other presentations which might be beneficial to their campuses. The teams begin on Friday evening with a discussion of the current state of undergraduate research on their campuses, followed by a list of strengths and impediments to institutionalizing research programs. Once this inventory of the current state of affairs is completed, teams are in a position to generate institutional missions and goals. The purpose of this Institute is the generation of the institutional plan, which must include a list of goals, deadlines for implementing the goals, a list of individuals responsible for each activity, and the assessment plan for each goal. This identification of the people who will be involved is vital as it forces the teams to think very carefully about the dynamics of making their vision a reality. Some institutions that send teams to the CUR Institute have little or no scholarship done on campus and are looking for ways to start research programs. In these cases, relatively modest goals are identified, and their initiatives are much more long-range in nature. We believe that the Institutes have been very useful to them in that we display numerous options and help them identify realistic goals. In these instances, significant cultural issues need to be addressed, and changes in this realm are a substantial component of their goals. On the other hand, other institutions have come to the Institute poised to take on new initiatives and are there to try to identify a substantial number of short-term and longterm goals. The Vital Faculty: Issues After Tenure This workshop is structured very similarly to that of the CUR Institute on institutionalizing undergraduate research. Plenary sessions are focused on the evolution of faculty careers, including the increased administrative responsibilities after tenure is awarded, the role of the institution in encouraging and rewarding post-tenure faculty development, the role of the department chair in creating a supportive environment for continuing faculty development, and the use of post-tenure reviews in both a summative and a formative sense. Strat-
Journal of Chemical Education • Vol. XX No. XX Month 199X • JChemEd.chem.wisc.edu
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Judith A. Halstead Skidmore College Saratoga Springs, NY 12866
egies for individual faculty development, such as the use of collaborations and sabbaticals, are usually discussed. A session on pedagogy as a vehicle for faculty development was particularly well-received recently. Breakout sessions on topics related to those of the plenary sessions give individual faculty the opportunity to meet in small groups on particular issues. To facilitate the exchange of information between participants from different institutions, several round table discussions are held on topics such as merit pay, mentoring for or by mid-career faculty, time management, and creating a climate of respect for differing faculty strengths. The formation of institutional plans for the creation of a faculty development program that emphasizes the continuing growth of post-tenure faculty is a goal of this CUR Institute, and recently the last fourth of this workshop was spent on drafting these plans. For a number of faculty, this was the first time that these issues were discussed with their colleagues. The final session of the workshop was the brief presentation of these plans, with the intent of allowing other teams to identify good ideas that had not arisen in their discussions. Conclusions The assessment of the teams who have attended suggests that the CUR Institutes are a valuable undertaking for any academic community that wants to broaden its base of undergraduate research or is looking for ways to change the culture of its campus. Indeed, every institution that has sent a team to an institute has generated tangible changes in its programs afterwards. In some cases, these changes have been substantial. For those institutions already prepared to take on new initiatives, the institute served as a mechanism for change and a means of displaying the options that were available to them. This helped the institutions make the best choices for their unique circumstances. Either way, the institutes have been responsive to the needs of the participants. The structure of the
workshops allows coordinators to handle institutions at many different levels of engagement with scholarship. Contact Information Information about upcoming workshops will be available on the CUR Web site at http://www.cur.org (listed under meetings). The contact person for Institutionalizing Undergraduate Research is Michael Nelson at
[email protected]; that for the Vital Faculty: Issues After Tenure is Nancy Mills at
[email protected]. Teams typically leave the CUR Institutes with at least two things: The first is a plan that has been well-thoughtout and is realistic in its goals and its scope. There are numerous reality checks built into the structure of these workshops to ensure that each plan will mesh well with the unique circumstances found on each campus. These checks include an administrator and often a department chair as part of each team, continual feedback from the facilitator and other team members, and the public presentation of each plan. Secondly, coordinators find that most participants are energized by their discussions with their facilitators and with each other. They come away with enough energy to meet the great challenge of institutionalizing their efforts and changing their campus culture. The success stories from institutions that have attended the CUR Institutes are many and varied, and we believe that the CUR Institutes are vital to institutions in encouraging student-centered scholarship. Nancy Mills is in the Department of Chemistry, Trinity University, San Antonio, TX 78212-7200; phone: 210-7367317; email:
[email protected]. Mitch Malachowski is in the Department of Chemistry, University of San Diego, San Diego, CA 92110.
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